My Tortie is extremely skittish. I have held her three times in her 4 years, and can barely pat her when she is curled up in her bed. That being said—— I can just imagine if I squirted a spray bottle near her!!!!! LOL! I was able to sneak the back of the neck stuff on her by leaving the thingy near her bed so that she knew it was not something to be afraid of.
This is a cat who wants to be near us all the time, but not to be touched. I guess she never had loving by humans right after birth. Sigh
We used to have a tortie —she was the least snuggly cat that I’ve ever known. I think they tend to be on the wild side — at least that was my experience.
Oh I can relate to that. We have 3 cats and one of them literally showed up one stormy night on our doorstep. Now 13 years later he is still a scaredy cat although he has been treated like a prince all those years. I have never picked up a cat who is as stiff as he is. There is nothing cuddly about him and it's just so sad. He tolerates having his tail gently pulled, but that's about it.
I have a skittish tortie myself! She’s a feral rescue; she was living in our yard when we moved into our house the middle of 2009 and after two and a half years she finally decided Mrs. Tweezers and I would make good servants.
She is very affectionate to my wife and me, but still very distrustful of anyone else. And she HATES going anywhere in the car. I had to take her to the vet yesterday to get her rabies vaccination up to date and she cried the whole way there and back. I was holding her in the exam room trying to keep her calm and the poor thing was shedding clumps of fur.